Fan Rant: An R Rating for 'Slumdog Millionaire'?! Give Me a Break!

by Eric D. Snider Oct 22nd 2008 // 9:15PM

Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Independent, New Releases, Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, Fox Searchlight, Fan Rant



I thought it wasn't possible to view the Motion Picture Association of America's ratings board with more disgust and contempt than I already did, but they've managed to surprise me. Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle's joyful, enriching drama about a poor young man going all the way on India's Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, has been slapped with an R rating for "some violence, disturbing images and language."

Speaking of language, the MPAA is full of s***. Big, meaty piles of s***. Slumdog Millionaire (to be released Nov. 12) has a couple of F-bombs (just like most PG-13 films), some moderate other profanity, a couple of intense moments, and some non-graphic violence. In fact, as Slashfilm's Peter Sciretta (citing Alex Billington) has pointed out, there are several instances in the film where Boyle has obviously cut away to avoid showing anything too strong. Clearly he had a PG-13 rating in mind, and as someone who watches a few hundred new movies every year, let me tell you: This is a PG-13 movie. Its content is right in line with the vast majority of PG-13 movies.

Yet for some reason, the MPAA has given it an R. Let me steal a bit from Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers: Really?! Really, MPAA? You think the pencil-impaling, face-melting antics of The Dark Knight fall within the bounds of PG-13 acceptability, but a few gunshots and tense situations put Slumdog Millionaire over the line into R territory? Really? And the decapitations and mass slaughters of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian -- a film aimed directly at children -- only gets a PG (a PG!!) while Slumdog Millionaire gets an R? Really?! MPAA, if you were a judge, you'd be letting rapists go free while sentencing jaywalkers to the electric chair. I've seen more sober reasoning and sound judgment at a frat party. Michael Vick had more common sense than you.

Or did it have to do with the message of the film? Was there something in the positive, life-affirming, genuinely inspiring tone of Slumdog Millionaire that made you think, "You know, we really shouldn't expose our children to this kind of happiness"? Do you think the PG-13 rating should be reserved not for high-quality works with uplifting themes, but for non-stop sex-and-poop-joke factories like The Love Guru? Only adults should be permitted to see films that elevate the mind and boost the spirit? Is that it?

Is there a more useless, misguided, delusional group in all of America? These clownshoes have Hollywood by the short hairs with their "voluntary" rating system that is, for all intents and purposes, not voluntary at all for wide releases. And once you submit your film to be rated, you're at the mercy of these prudish, Pharisaical, swear-word-counting hypocrites who claim only to have parents' best interests at heart while consistently giving less-restrictive ratings to movies that no sane parent would want his or her child to see.

I don't know why Fox Searchlight isn't appealing this rating. Surely no reasonable person who has seen the film thinks it should be rated R. I'm generally in favor of ignoring the MPAA anyway, but this time I especially urge moviegoers who skip R-rated films to disregard the buffoons and see Slumdog Millionaire when it opens. Take your teenagers with you, too. It's one of the best times you'll have at the movies this year, and it's suitable for anyone over the age of 12, regardless of what the MPAA thinks.

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Tags: MPAA, slumdog millionaire, SlumdogMillionaire

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